How to survive the apocalypse age...

Congratulations Survivor and welcome to Gaz and Lou's Safehouse. From now until the cloud comes down we'll be posting and sharing all the info we can find to help you live, eat and travel safely, with as little energy, money, and environmental impact as possible.

A lot of us, myself included, rely on drugs from the pharmacy to enable a 'normal' level of operation, anti depressants and painkillers being the most common. So what are we going to do when the chemicals run out, or the prices rise so high that we can no longer sustain our treatment? We'll do what we always do: Run home to mother... mother nature that is (ahem).

You may know Natural medicines as Alternative medicines. I'm not going to use that phrase because, to my mind, the chemically produced medicines we take today are the alternative to the natural treatments we used before the industrial revolution. Similarly, I'm not going to say Herbal medicine, because some natural medicines don't come from herbs, simple as that.

Natural medicines offer the same diverse range of treatments as industrial medicines and can be extracted from plants that grow freely in your garden. St John's Wort is a good example and is widely used to treat anxiety and mood swings (long term treatment of depression is still under investigation), but it is also a pain killer and fights gastric indigestion. I recommend that we all commit a space in our stronghold to the cultivation of St John's Wort.

As with any treatment, external or internal, natural or industrial, there is no one size fits all solution. Some people may experience no benefit, or even suffer side effects. I still recommend that we all investigate the possibilities offered by the natural world, but please do so responsibly. I suggest that you bookmark this page, linked below, which gives you access to almost everything that is already known about natural and industrial treatments and seek professional advice if you are already committed to a course of chemical medication.

I've been going on about eating insects as a healthy and sustainable alternative to traditional meat. I'm going to do it, I am, but I'm apprehensive.

I've looked at the reasoning behind eating insects (tick) and the ease of home farming (tick), so today I'm looking at cooking.

I'd decided that I was going to try either worms or crickets as both are readily available. The issue I've hit, with worms, is that there are few recipes out there, and all seem to be trying to mask the fact that I'd be eating worms. But crickets...

There are tons of delicious sounding cricket recipes out there. They respect the creature for what it is, like a prawn or chunks of chicken. They make me a bit excited about the idea because I'm going to do it - I really really am.

Feed your groupPosted by Judageddon Mon, March 09, 2015 11:13:15If you like eating Shrimps and Prawns, or Crabs and Lobsters, then you're going to love this...

Hello fellow survivors.

Over the weekend I've been pondering: On the one hand, what's the point in eating insects, if I don't know how to farm them? On the other hand, what's the point in farming them, if I just don't like the taste?

I decided to start looking at how to farm, deciding that: if I know I'll be able to farm them, I can go ahead and eat them (yes, i'm nervous about eating insects for the first time).

Insect farming for human consumption is very new to the West. The first US commercial insect farm only opened in May 2014, that's how new it is, so finding usable information about farming without buying ridiculous technology or an ingenious kit has been hard, but here it is.

The link below takes you to a detailed report of everything from housing, feeding and breeding processes, to financial models for commercial scale operations. It even goes on to cover possible future problems as the industry upscales. It's everything you need to know.

The report, from Teca, also includes acknowledgements and further reading.

I bet you think I'm mad, going on about eating insects, but did you know that it takes 12.5 times more feed to produce red meat than it does to produce protein rich insect meat? I'm telling you, insects are the future: They take care of their own breeding cycle, thrive in small spaces and generate no vet bills.

But don't take my word for it. Have a read of the United Nations report of 2013, titled:

As well as explaining how and why eating insects is a good thing, it has interesting data and references about why we don't eat insects in the west, unless they are encased in a sweet, while eastern countries eat them by the ladle full. Have a look.

WARNING! DO NOT EAT WILD INSECTS. ONLY CONSUME INSECTS OBTAINED FROM A REPUTABLE SUPPLIER.

In earlier posts I've been talking about Urban Vegetable Farming to keep your group alive. I found that, unless you have success with Soy Beans, you are all going to feel pretty tired and hungry without a reliable source of protein.

We could eat meat... but meat comes from animals, which take up a lot of space and consume vast quantities of your hand grown vegetables, if you must have your burgers and bacon. Chickens take up less space, consume less, and provide a daily protein portion, already packaged for storage, daily.

So what could be better than chickens? Something we can farm in vast numbers, without taking up much space or consuming masses of our greens, something we can hunt without straying too far, something that exists right under our feet...

People have been eating insects forever. Not as a gimmick or dare, but as a major part of their diet. Why do they eat insects? Because, in addition to the reasons given above, they are tasty. If we in the western world have any plans to survive, we need to get used to the idea of eating insects, rather than burdening poorer countries with our expanding meat farming needs in exchange for money.

What insects can we eat? Lots, and when you see pictures of them cooked, they don't look so bad; no worse than cockles and muscles anyway.

Take a look at the link below, which outlines which, where, how and why insects are eaten. If you're lucky, I'll cover preparing and eating insects personally.

I loved camping when I was a kid: The four of us on an adventure, days on the beach, night time stories, peeing in a bucket, the smells, the spills and cries of 'Euech! Someone's done a poo in it.'Of course, before breakfast, Dad would take the bucket to the wash house and simply flush the content away. We didn't have to live with the stink, day after day.

But what if the grid has collapsed? What if there is no water to wash the nastiness down the pipes? The average household uses around 125 Litres of water, per day, flushing the toilet. I doubt I'd be able to collect that much water in my urban stronghold, so what would I do with four peoples worth of bucket slops every day? Chuck it over the fence?

There is a solution, and it's double barrelled. It's a dry composting toilet. Not only does it provide a dignifide and hygienic alternative to sharing a bucket, it also generates a steady supply of safe organic fertiliser, which is perfectly fine to put under your vegetables. I mean, we've been using animal based fertiliser for ever; why not use our own? There's plenty of it.

Dry composting toilets are providing sanitary facilities the world over; understandably, most commonly in countries where water can be scarce. I know the idea of it can be difficult to process. I'm sure some of you are imagining a cluster of breakfast bars, smeared all over a lettuce, or finding a piece of sweetcorn in amongst your steamed cabbage, but it's not like that.

Here's a link to a page with more information than I have to give. It does refer to a specific commercial component, but in doing so explains the principles of DCTs very well.

Having dealt with the things I'd need to survive in a car, I decided to compile a list of everything I'd need to survive in a house. It started out well, but whenever I saw someone else's list, I saw things I'd missed off. I'd end up stuck in a house with plenty of things to entertain the mind, but not to exercise the body, and condoms never crossed my mind.

So, to keep it brief, here's the longest list with fifty items, then a link to fifty more:

Sometimes it's hard to keep going, particularly if you're self employed or self sustaining. Sometimes, I don't even want to get up in the morning, knowing I have to feed, wash, dress and herd two kids to two different schools, before I can start doing a load of other things I'd rather not. Thing is though, I know that if I don't get up when that alarm goes off at seven a.m. then I'm going to have the school on my back and two kids under my feet while I'm trying to get on with every thing else I need to do. Another way of looking at it is...

If I do get up, then I'll get the kids to school and have a clear six hours to get everything else out of the way. I see the benefit, and that's what get's me out of bed every day.

What about everything else?

Yeah, so the kids are at school and I can enjoy a coffee break while I think about the filing, cleaning, bill paying, laundry and house repairs I have in-front of me. I have my note book and pen, something I like on the radio, and I set about listing the tasks so that I have a clear understanding of what needs to be done, rather than running a list through my head all day that forces me off track and makes things seem impossible.

My list:

* Filing* Cleaning* Pay bills* laundry* Clear gutters

Prioritise

The first thing to do with my list is check I'm doing everything in the right order. The laundry looks after itself once it's on, so put that on first. It makes sense to pay the bills before I do the filing, so...

My revised list:

* Laundry* Pay bills* Filing* Cleaning* Clear gutters

A clear understanding of what I'm doing

I'm only half way through my coffee, and set about breaking my tasks down into detailed steps.

My steps:

* Collect laundry, sort into wash types, put first load on.* Pay Water and Energy bills on line, record pay date and put with filing.* Separate filing into recycle, shred and keep piles, categorise keeps and file, shred and recycle.* (Hang washing and start next load)

You see where this is going, but it's not really motivating us to do any of this, is it? Well here's the important bit...

Think 'If I do, then I can...'

It's important to think this way, rather than 'If I don't, then I can't...' Don't then Can't thinking can amplify a fear of consequence that you could easily start to associate with the task itself. It's amazing how much energy is eaten up by low priority tasks that you're constantly reminded of: The deadline for that form might be weeks away now, but it's going to get closer and closer and harder and harder to engage; No body want's to make a call to explain that they can't pay a bill. We might imagine all kinds of horrors will occur as a result. And we'll keep imagining, and things will seem worse each time we remember that the call needs to be made. Sometimes the only benefit is 'If I do this, then I can stop worrying about it.'

* If I separate the filing into three piles, then I can focus on just the keeps.* If I categorise the keeps, then I can put each pile straight into it's folder in one go.* If I finish the filing, then I can have a biscuit.

Don't forget to recognise each accomplishment, and reward yourself if you think you deserve it.